Tag: Sabalom Glitz

Timestamp #151: Dragonfire

Michael Falkner7 Comments

Doctor Who: Dragonfire
(3 episodes, s24e12-e14, 1987)

 

Iceworld: A vacation spot where cliffhangers are literal but dragons are not.

We get our introduction to this planetary freezer section through fog machines, plastic icicles, and frost burns. A group of conscripted men is being processed as foot soldiers for the villain Kane and his reign of terror. One of the men attacks a guard and shoots his way into the facility’s restricted zone. He stumbles, drops his weapon in a vat of liquid nitrogen, and dies at the hands of Kane. Quite literally, in fact, since one touch from the man can kill.

On the TARDIS, the Doctor and Mel approach the colony. They arrive at what could double as the local Costco – anyone who is familiar with that particular warehouse store understands the giant refrigerated rooms where you pay for the “pleasure” of freezing while hunting for good produce, milk, and eggs – and visit a diner where they find Sabalom Glitz. It’s a given that Glitz owes Kane money, but he gambled away his money and ends up with his ship impounded. A waitress named Ace (who uses her pseudonym as an exclamation of pleasure) tells Mel and Glitz of a dragon in the passages beneath Iceworld, and Mel puts the pieces together: The Doctor wanted to stop here to see the dragon.

Ace volunteers to tag along since she’s tired of her job. She calls the Doctor “Professor,” which the Time Lord doesn’t seem to mind. It’s endearing. So is her strong character.

Ace mentions the dragon’s treasure, which piques Glitz’s interest since he has a map that he won in the card game where he lost his shirt. Said card game was fixed by Kane to force Glitz to find the treasure so Kane could steal it. Glitz is old-fashioned (read: sexist) and won’t allow women on the journey, so Mel remains with Ace. The ladies are soon ejected from the diner – Ace gets fired for pouring a milkshake on a rude customer who totally deserved what she got – and retire to Ace’s quarters. Ace shares her story: She’s a student from Earth who was swept up in a time storm and deposited on Iceworld. The women gather up Ace’s homemade explosives and help dislodge an ice jam on the docks.

One of Kane’s lieutenants, Officer Belazs, asks Kane for Glitz’s ship. Kane denies her desire to leave and orders the ship destroyed. When Kane goes into a brief hibernation to recharge, she reverses the order without his knowledge before being dispatched to the ice jam disturbance. When she arrives, she arrests Mel and Ace. Kane takes a liking to Ace and offers her a place in his army, but she and Mel escape into the caverns instead. They encounter the dragon and Mel screams.

Goodness does she… you know.

The Doctor and Glitz explore the caverns and get separated. The Doctor, for reasons better left as an exercise for the blooper reels, climbs over a handrail and slowly slips toward his doom while dangling from his umbrella. Glitz saves the Doctor from death, but not from our eternal laughter at this literal cliffhanger, perhaps one of the worst in Doctor Who history.

The ladies discover that the dragon is not a real dragon since it shoots lasers from its eyes. They find the cliffhangering cliff and use a ladder in Ace’s bag of holding to follow the Doctor’s umbrella as a clue. Meanwhile, Kane dispatches his new soldiers – essentially ice zombies at this point – to deal with Glitz; the conscripted men from the opening are Glitz’s former crewmen whom he sold for seventeen crowns apiece. Belazs also overhears Glitz’s plan to hijack his own ship, a plan that the Doctor reluctantly supports. Glitz gets into the cockpit, but he’s ambushed by Belazs. The Doctor and Glitz learn her backstory and turn the tables, but the Doctor expresses remorse for her situation. They continue their quest.

In Kane’s restricted area, the sculptor who was working on an ice statue finishes his work and is rewarded with death. No one will be allowed to look upon the artwork for it’s supposedly too magnificent for the universe to behold. We, as viewers, are left to assume that it is significant to his backstory. (Spoiler: It is.) When Kane retreats to his chamber to cool off, Belazs and Officer Kracauer attempt to assassinate him and gain their freedom. The plot fails, although it does destroy the statue, and Kane kills both of the traitors in anger.

The Doctor and Glitz encounter the dragon, but it spares them after the Doctor stops Glitz from killing it. Elsewhere, Mel and Ace encounter the ice zombies, escaping after a brief battle while Ace wisely stops Mel from screaming. They bond over a cup of camp coffee and we find out that Ace’s real name is Dorothy, a name of which she’s not fond. They later reunite with the Doctor and Glitz and are saved from one of the zombified crewmen by the dragon. The creature trusts them and leads the explorers into a side cavern and shows them a holographic record. Kane is half of the Kane-Xana criminal organization that was headquartered on Proamon. When security forces found them, Xana – see above, re: ice sculpture – killed herself and Kane was exiled to the permanently frozen world. The Doctor deduces that the dragon, or rather the power source within the mechanical creature, is the treasure. Thanks to the tracker his musings are no secret to Kane, who plans to use the dragonfire crystal to leave the colony and his frozen prison.

The Doctor and the dragon research Proamon while Mel, Ace, and Glitz wait in the control cavern. Two of Kane’s officers ambush the dragon and eventually kill it, but when they attempt to remove the head they are killed by an energy discharge. In the upper levels, Kane dispatches his troops to drive everyone toward Glitz’s ship, the Nosferatu. Once everyone (save a little girl and her mother) are aboard, Kane destroys the ship.

We get it. He’s evil.

The Doctor, Mel, and Ace return to the TARDIS to consult the star charts. Ace goes to her quarters and is captured by Kane while the Doctor and Mel go after the dragon. They find the head and retrieve the crystal, but Kane demands an exchange for Ace. When Mel, Glitz, and the Doctor arrive, Kane confirms that the dragon was his jailer and that he has been on the colony for millennia. The Doctor surrenders the crystal and Kane uses it to power the hidden stardrive in the colony. Unfortunately for Kane, the Doctor confirms that Proamon is long dead after its star went supernova. Distraught, Kane opens a viewport and commits suicide by sunlight, Raiders of the Lost Ark-style.

With the threat over, Glitz takes command of the colony ship and Mel decides to stay in an effort to keep the rogue out of trouble. In her final act on the TARDIS, Mel puts in a good word for Ace. The Doctor offers her a space on the TARDIS and she accepts.

 

Kane’s motivations make little sense here. Sure, he wants to escape and exact revenge on his jailors, but his suicide doesn’t ring true. Sure, he’s a psychopath, but he was a careful and meticulous planner. Unless personal vengeance was so important to him, I would have thought that he’d scratch Proamon off the list with the supernova and go off to conquer another planet without his rap sheet hanging over his head. This plot glitch aside, I really liked him as a villain, even as a Doctor Who knockoff of Mr. Freeze.

Another part that doesn’t make a lot of sense is Mel’s final decision. So, yes, she and Glitz worked together in The Ultimate Foe, but Mel has expressed displeasure at every turn with the scoundrel’s actions, ranging from sexism and selling his crew into slavery all the way up to his illegal activities. I’d say that Glitz is a knockoff of Han Solo, but Solo was far more developed. The Leia/Han dynamic doesn’t work here and I don’t think Mel is strong enough to change Glitz, particularly since he now owns a portable freezer section with only two shoppers.

I won’t miss Mel much. From her timey-wimey intro in Terror of the Vervoids to this departure, she’s been a decent enough companion but, by far, nowhere near the best. A lot of that has to do with her role as a personality foil for the Doctor rather than as an assistant/companion. She was smart and strong-willed, but just not a great fit for the position.

I also won’t miss the dramatic screaming. Because – and this might be the last time that I can make this joke – goodness, can she scream.

So, with all of that heaped on this story, why did I actually like it?

First, we have Ace, who seems like she might be a pretty fun companion once she settles in. I do hope that the “Ace!” exclamation dies off soon because that’s going to get tiresome, but I’m looking forward to what she brings to the table.

Second, Sylvester McCoy continues to sell me with his portrayal of the Doctor. He has a latent darkness lurking behind his goofy exterior, reminding me of the Second and Fourth Doctors quite often.

Third, this story brought Doctor Who right back to its roots with tight shots, minimal bailing-wire-and-chewing-gum sets, and actors selling even the zaniest and loosest of plots with unwavering confidence. That point alone, hearkening back to the low-budget stageplay-style days of the black and white serials, deserves some credit.

 

Rating: 3/5 – “Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow.”

 

 

UP NEXT – Twenty-Fourth Series Summary

 

 

The Timestamps Project is an adventure through the televised universe of Doctor Who, story by story, from the beginning of the franchise. For more reviews like this one, please visit the project’s page at Creative Criticality.

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Timestamp #147: The Ultimate Foe

Michael Falkner8 Comments

Doctor Who: The Ultimate Foe
The Trial of a Time Lord, Parts XIII-XIV
(2 episodes, s23e13-e14, 1986)

 

It’s time for closing statements.

Picking up at the Doctor’s inadvertent admission of genocide, the Doctor charges that the Matrix has been tampered with so the Inquisitor calls upon the Keeper of the Matrix to testify. The Keeper denies the possibility on grounds that the Key of Rassilon is required to enter the database, and only senior Time Lords have access to the keys. Neither the Valeyard nor the Inquisitor is swayed.

Something sounded fishy here, so I waded back into the archives. The Invasion of Time calls out the Great Key of Rassilon, the literal key to ultimate Time Lord knowledge. So are all of these senior Time Lords holding Lesser Keys of Rassilon, and if so, what is the difference if they all lead to the same Matrix, arguably the source of all Time Lord knowledge?

Outside the station, two pods arrive and travel down the fancy corridor of light. They open to reveal Sabalom Glitz and Mel – though neither knows how they arrived at the station – and they barge into the courtroom to offer a defense for the Doctor. On cue, their mysterious benefactor is revealed as the Master, communicating to them from the depths of the Matrix.

First, this whole arc just got a lot more deus ex machina.

Second, it turns out that a Key of Rassilon can be duplicated. Looking back on The Invasion of Time and the (admittedly assumed) purpose of the Great Key and the “lesser” keys, this really makes me wonder about the Artifacts of Rassilon. Possession of the Sash, the Key, and the Rod could lead to absolute power and a Time Lord dictatorship, and if the keys are so easily duplicated then why hasn’t someone attempted a coup with a Gallifreyan 3-D printer?

The Time Lords in attendance do not recognize the Master (which is surprising given how often the High Council has interacted with the Master and/or sent the Doctor to stop him), but the Master seems to have a deep interest in the Valeyard and a strong desire to see him lose. The Inquisitor allows Glitz to testify and the rogue reveals that the mysterious box he was searching for contained secrets of the Time Lords. The sleepers – the inhabitants of Ravalox, then known as Earth – somehow gained access to the Matrix and were siphoning secrets into the box for later use, and the Gallifreyan High Council drew Earth out of orbit, initiated the fireball, and renamed the planet to protect the information.

Yikes. The Doctor’s enemy in this story is own people?

The Master reveals that the Valeyard was charged to tamper with the trial evidence in exchange for the rest of the Doctor’s regenerations. You see, the Valeyard is the Doctor… or rather the amalgamation of the Doctor’s darker impulses from somewhere between his twelfth and final incarnations.

The Doctor’s real enemy is himself.

The Inquisitor agrees that the trial must consider this new evidence, and the Valeyard flees into the Matrix. The Doctor and Glitz pursue him, landing in a warped recreation of Victorian-era London. The Doctor is attacked by a rain barrel, but he is saved by Glitz. The rouge hands the Time Lord a note from the Master pointing them toward a place called The Fantasy Factory. As they approach, Glitz takes a harpoon to the chest.

The Matrix is a place where logic has no hold, and we’re back to The Deadly Assassin.

In the courtroom, the Master testifies to the court that everything they saw was true with minor adjustments to cast doubt on the Doctor. He also reveals that Peri’s fate in Mindwarp was a lie. She is serving as a queen at the side of King Yrcanos, thus providing a great sigh of relief from your humble reviewer. The Master hopes that the Valeyard and the Doctor will destroy each other and leave him free to pillage the universe, and he suggests that the High Council be made to answer for their crimes.

Reasonable.

In the Matrix, we find that the Valeyard’s attack didn’t roll high enough to defeat Glitz’s armor class, and the rogue is convinced to help the Doctor and escape the computer. They enter The Fantasy Factory and meet Mr. Popplewick, a rather stuffy bureaucrat who loves his red tape. The Doctor rushes past the front desk to the proprietor’s office only to find a more officious version of Popplewick. The procedure is sacrosanct!

Before the Doctor is allowed to proceed, he is forced to sign over his remaining regenerations to Mr. J. J. Chambers – the Valeyard – in the event of his “untimely” death. Within moments, he is whisked away to a bleak beach where hands attack from beneath the sand and draw him down, reminiscent of the quicksand traps that permeated much of ’80s television and film adventures. Glitz adopts the role of reliable sidekick and tries to rescue him, but the Doctor overcomes the trap by sheer willpower, pretty much invalidating any amount of physical peril going forward. After a round of taunting from the Valeyard, the evil Time Lord forces the Doctor and Glitz into a nearby hut with a cloud of nerve gas.

The twist: The hut is the Master’s TARDIS. The Master explains that the Valeyard has to be stopped because he has none of the Doctor’s morality, leaving him eviler, more powerful, and a huge threat. The Master tricks the Doctor by putting him in a catatonic state and leaving him as bait for the Valeyard. The Master’s Tissue Compression Eliminator proves useless against the Valeyard and the pair is forced to retreat. Meanwhile, Mel somehow arrives in the Matrix and escorts him out of the Matrix and back to the courtroom.

Mel testifies in the Doctor’s defense, offering footage from Terror of the Vervoids as evidence. The Inquisitor is not swayed, sentencing the Doctor to death. The Doctor accepts the verdict with surprising calm, and we find out that this is yet another Matrix illusion. Outside the Matrix, the real Mel is incensed, prompting her to steal the Key of Rassilon and enter the Matrix. She intercepts the Doctor, but he chides her because he knew it was a ruse based on her digital doppelgänger’s testimony. Together they enter the Fantasy Factory in pursuit of the Valeyard.

The Master charges Glitz, first via failed hypnosis then with a treasure chest, with finding the Ravalox Matrix box. Glitz finds the memory tapes and Mr. Popplewick while the Doctor discovers a list (in his own handwriting) of judges from his trial. Together, they force Popplewick to take them to the Valeyard, but Glitz trades the Doctor for the memory tapes, which he then passes to the Master.

The Doctor reveals Popplewick to be the Valeyard in disguise. He further discovers a maser device aimed at the courtroom, ready to kill the assembled Time Lords as a last resort. The list of names was a hit list. He dispatches Mel to evacuate the courtroom.

In the real world, Gallifrey is collapsing into chaos. The High Council has been deposed by a civilian revolt, and the Master takes the opportunity to seize control. The attempt is stymied when he loads the Ravalox drive into his TARDIS console and it freezes both the Master and Glitz in the Matrix.

Mel tries to evacuate the courtroom while the Doctor destroys the maser using a feedback loop. The surge strikes the Valeyard, knocking him down as the Fantasy Factory explodes. The Doctor returns to reality and learns of Peri’s true fate. The Inquisitor offers the presidency to the Doctor, but he declines, instead offering it to her. He also suggests that the Master should be punished but that Glitz can be reformed.

Leaving his fate up to the Time Lords means that the Master will be back. No doubt.

Mel and the Doctor depart with a quip, and the Doctor nearly abandons Mel at the hint of carrot juice in their future. Instead, they board the TARDIS and take off for points unknown. Meanwhile, the Inquisitor dissolves the court and orders the Keeper to repair and reinforce the Matrix.

Unbeknownst to anyone in attendance, the Keeper is the Valeyard in disguise.

 

As part of the Trial of a Time Lord arc, The Ultimate Foe provides a decent enough resolution, bolstered by the revelation that Peri survived and is living a good life. She did look a little sad, but I assume that it’s the weight of her role as leader. I can’t imagine that she actually missed the Sixth Doctor after all the abuse he has subjected her to, but she might miss the thrill of the adventure.

On its own, the story of The Ultimate Foe is fairly weak. The introduction of the Master weakens the power of the Valeyard and turns this “dark Doctor” into “Master Lite”. The disguises, the logical trickery, the drive to steal regenerations and kill the Doctor… all of it is just a rehash of the Master’s various machinations. The resolution also points out a massive plot hole: If the Sixth Doctor dies with regenerating, there can’t be a Twelfth Doctor or beyond. The Valeyard cannot exist unless he remains outside of time, and if he does stay outside of time then what is the point of all that power?

On a series continuity note, I did enjoy the call back to the Doctor’s dislike of the nickname “Doc”. We’ve seen it at least four times before: The Dalek Invasion of Earth, The Time Meddler, The Five Doctors, and The Twin Dilemma.

On a project note, this is the first time that an incarnation’s finale doesn’t get the regeneration handicap. This wasn’t intended as the final story for Colin Baker, and he doesn’t even begin the regeneration process in this story.

 

Rating: 2/5 – “Mm? What’s that, my boy?”

 

UP NEXT – Twenty-Third Series Summary

 

 

The Timestamps Project is an adventure through the televised universe of Doctor Who, story by story, from the beginning of the franchise. For more reviews like this one, please visit the project’s page at Creative Criticality.

Timestamp #144: The Mysterious Planet

Michael Falkner7 Comments

Doctor Who: The Mysterious Planet
The Trial of a Time Lord, Parts I-IV
(4 episodes, s23e01-e04, 1986)

 

Changes about with a darker theme tune and intricate model and special effects work. The same old creepy smiling intro remains a constant.

Swimming in effects is the TARDIS, drawn off course into a space station in the middle of nowhere. The Doctor emerges from the time capsule, confused and stumbling into a room where he is put on trial by his fellow Time Lords. The trial is spearheaded by the Valeyard and is overseen by the Inquisitor. The latter remarks that he has been put on trial once before for his meddling. He’s also been stripped of his title of Lord President of Gallifrey.

The Valeyard commences his trial of the Doctor with the tale of his adventure on Ravalox, which is contained in detail inside the Matrix. The assembled Time Lords begin to watch an episode of Doctor Who, and this whole thing goes kind of meta.

The adventure begins as Peri and the Doctor roam the forests of Ravalox, a planet virtually identical to Earth (but not in the same location) that is destined to be destroyed by a solar fireball. They are watched by Glitz and Dibber, a pair who try to shoot the Doctor but miss their respective opportunities. The travelers find a cavern, which apparently contains the L3 robot that the assassins are trying to destroy. As the Doctor and Peri proceed inside, the find a sign for the Marble Arch tube station, and Peri mourns the death of her home planet. Ravalox is Earth.

In the courtroom, the Doctor objects to what he considers a waste of time. He also questions where Peri is during this whole affair, which the Valeyard finds interesting. The Doctor has forgotten where he left her, presumably a side effect of being “taken out of time.”

 

Returning to the episode already in progress…

The Doctor continues into the depths of the station alone and Peri gets captured by the local natives. In the clean and shiny underground complex, the Doctor picks up a bottle of water and is apprehended for theft. Water is life, and those who steal it must die by stoning. He has a discussion with Balazar, the leader of the water guards, and discovers that the man’s job is to read the sacred texts of Marb Station – Moby-Dick by Herman Melville, The Water Babies by Charles Kingsley, and UK Habitats of the Canadian Goose by H.M. Stationery Office – before being placed for the stoning. He tries to deflect the rocks but ends up unconscious anyway.

Meanwhile, Glitz and Dibber make their way to the native village to meet with their leader. They claim that the malfunctioning navigational beacon in their village, which Katryca and her people treat as a totem to a god, is what brought the fireball to Ravalox. The assassins try to overpower their guards and fail. They are soon joined in the village by Peri.

In the courtroom, the Valeyard proposes that the inquiry become a full trial of the Time Lord, with the penalty being his death. Presumably, not just regeneration as it was before, but a full-blown execution. I guess they’re semi-serious about this (despite their previous history of asking and compelling the Doctor to interfere).

 

Returning to the episode already in progress…

Officials arrive and interrupt the stoning, and the robot (“the Immortal”) demands that the Doctor and Balazar are brought before him. The Doctor is cautioned not to look upon the Immortal – “On pain of being turned into a pillar of salt, I imagine.” – before being sent into the robot’s inner sanctum. The robot, known as Drathro, commands the Doctor to work with his two human assistants.

In the village, Peri is introduced to the queen, promised many husbands, and then placed in captivity with the assassins. Glitz and Dibber share their plan to destroy the robot, but Peri balks at mass murder of the underground civilization. The captives are taken before Katryca where Glitz is chosen as a sacrifice to the god as penance for his crimes. The trio stage an escape with Glitz and Peri heading to Marb Station while Dibber destroys the black light converter tower.

The Doctor identifies the problem with the black light system, even though it is outside his area of expertise, but Drathro forbids it since his instructions are to maintain an underground civilization, not one above ground. The Doctor rigs a trap and escapes, and Drathro sends a utility drone to pursue him. During the search, Merdeen (one of the guards) tells Balazar to head for the surface. Balazar objects, but Merdeen assures him that the firestorm has been over for hundreds of years.

Balazar and Merdeen find the Doctor and offer to help him escape, but circumstances bring Peri’s team and the Doctor’s team together at the entrance to Marb Station, trapped between the armed tribesmen and the service drone. Luckily, Balazar recognizes the leader of the tribesman as his friend Broken Tooth and convinces him to shoot the drone. The tribesmen insist that the Doctor and the collected crowd return to the village.

After another courtroom interlude where the Inquisitor expresses her distaste for primitive violence, the episode continues in Marb Station with a confrontation between Merdeen and Grell, a fellow guard who overheard Merdeen’s discussion with Balazar. Drathro breaks the tension by dispatching Merdeen to find Balazar as his assistants reactivate the drone.

Returning to the village, the Doctor, Peri, and the assassins are brought before Katryca. The Doctor offers to repair the totem, but she tosses the lot in a cell. They are inadvertently freed as the drone breaks down their cell and captures the Doctor.

In the courtroom, we learn that the Matrix files are updated with the experiences of all Time Lords no matter where they are. Further, the TARDIS can act as a collection device to add experiences within its range. The Doctor questions whether or not a Type 40 TARDIS can do this without being bugged and the Valeyard deflects. Curiouser and curiouser.

 

Returning to the episode already in progress…

Katryca and the tribesmen pursue the service drone and disable it. They celebrate the death of the Immortal and rush off to storm Drathro’s castle. Peri sees to the Doctor while Glitz sends Dibber for some heavier artillery. The Doctor and Peri head to Marb Station to stop Tribe of the Free before the robot kills them.

Hey, he’s all heroic again! It’s about time.

Returning to the courtroom, the TARDIS evidence tapes end as Glitz and Dibber, armed with a big gun, pursue everyone else into Marb Station. The Valeyard claims that the evidence has been classified in the public interest. The Inquisitor asks if the Doctor officially objects, but he does not. Instead, he lets the Valeyard continue with the imagery collected from the Doctor’s perspective.

 

Returning to the episode already in progress…

The Doctor and Peri are intercepted by Merdeen, and the guard claims to be hunting the Doctor. He fires his crossbow, but instead of killing the Doctor he strikes Grell, who was trying to capture the Doctor for Drathro. Meanwhile, Katryca’s group breaks into Drathro’s domain, but he kills both the queen and Broken Tooth. He sends the rest of the strike group to await culling while his assistants run. It seems that an explosion is coming.

In the courtroom, the Doctor and the Valeyard come to verbal blows over what they’ve seen. The Doctor disputes the relevance of what they’ve seen while the Valeyard claims that had the Doctor never been there, none of it would have happened.

He has a point, you know.

The Inquisitor also takes issue with censoring of the discussions between Glitz and Dibber.

 

Returning to the episode already in progress…

The Doctor returns to Drathro and tries to shut down the black light system, but the robot forbids it. The Doctor tries to reason that the robot is doomed either way, but the people who serve the Immortal can be saved. The discussion is a good back-and-forth on the value of life and finally solidifies the Sixth Doctor in the ideology of the Doctor overall.

Also, Drathro calls the Doctor out on his verbal abuse, which is fantastic.

Glitz and Dibber are in search of information so they can sell it on the black market. They find the castle entrance, presuming that five rounds rapid (The Daemons) could break it down, but Dibber objects. So, they find their way to the food chutes with Peri, Merdeen, and Balazar, but Drathro detects their intrusion and tries to kill them. Dibber blasts his way in, opening a path into Drathro’s domain, and the group join the discussion. Glitz and Dibber humorously try to salvage the situation, resulting in everyone being tied up while the assassins escort Drathro to their ship. The Doctor breaks free and tries to stop the explosion, but he is only able to limit it to the castle. The explosion also destroys Drathro, leaving the assassins a chunk of valuable rock to fund their next escapade.

In the end, the Doctor tells Balazar to take his civilization to the surface and start a new life before leaving with Peri for their next adventure.

With the episode over, the Doctor proclaims that he should be found innocent of the Valeyard’s charges, but the Inquisitor denies him his victory. The Valeyard is only getting started.

 

Not a bad story overall. The separate scene storytelling trope took a little getting used to, but the evidentiary episode was a fun adventure. The Valeyard has a point that fewer lives would have been lost if the Doctor had never interfered, but Glitz and Dibber were already on the planet and would have potentially stolen information that could have killed any number of beings. The Valeyard’s schemes appear transparent to both the Doctor and the viewer, but it’s fun to see someone using the ignorance and procedural nature of the Time Lords against them like he does.

Refreshingly, this was a low body count for this era of the show.

Additionally, the Doctor and Peri were a lot closer this time than they have been in previous adventures. It’s nice to see him being less abusive toward her.

 

 

Rating: 4/5 – “Would you care for a jelly baby?”

 

 

 

UP NEXT – Doctor Who: Mindwarp

 

 

The Timestamps Project is an adventure through the televised universe of Doctor Who, story by story, from the beginning of the franchise. For more reviews like this one, please visit the project’s page at Creative Criticality.